DV royal commission recommends corporal punishment ban

Australia Broadcast Center

8 hours ago

Corporal punishment including smacking has been used as an excuse for "awful abuse" and should be outlawed, a royal commissioner says.
South Australia's Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence publicly released 136 recommendations on Tuesday.
One of those recommendations was a ban on parents or caregivers using corporal punishment.
Royal commissioner and former senator Natasha Stott Despoja said young children told the commission there was a "double standard".
"We tell young people and children that it's not OK to hit or smack and yet it's still considered an appropriate form of discipline," she told ABC News.
The royal commission recommended the Attorney-General ban the use of corporal punishment by amending or repealing the defence of reasonable chastisement.
"The reasonable chastisement defence relies on the use of force being not motivated by rage, malice or personal gratification, and that the punishment be reasonable for a child's age, size and health," the report finds.
"Physical punishment, including beatings, slaps or threats, was often presented as acceptable parenting behaviour as a way of 'correcting behaviour' or 'teaching respect' and was often reinforced by religious, generational or cultural norms.
"This made it difficult for the young people interviewed to determine 'whether what they experienced counted as abuse'.
Another young person said parents or caregivers might think they were disciplining a child but what they were actually doing was "beyond discipline".
Ms Stott Despoja said she did not think the ban was a "controversial" recommendation but she understood "people have strong feelings and I respect that".
"I know a lot of people would say 'a rap on the knuckles or the wooden spoon', it's not just about the act itself, it's the symbolism that we say in Australia today you can hit a child to discipline them," she said.
"Surely there are better ways."
The findings reported more than 65 countries have outlawed the practice and that Australia was an "outlier".
Researchers found in 2023 Australia's failure to outlaw the smacking of children violates the the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child treaty.
The Queensland Law Reform Commission is this year considering the criminal code's domestic discipline defence, but Premier David Crisafulli said the government should not tell guardians how to parent.
SA Attorney-General Kyam Maher told ABC Radio Adelaide current law states any physical force to a person, including a child, is considered an assault.
He said the reasonable chastisement defence permits parents or guardians "to administer moderate and reasonable physical punishment to children in their care for correcting behaviour".
Mr Maher said courts take into account different circumstances such as "the age, size, health of the child, the nature of the physical intervention and community standards".
"That sort of corrective smacking today is very limited. It's moderate and reasonable force, and it depends on its nature of the acts involved, the level of force, et cetera," he said.
"We have evolved with community standards and norms over time."
Mr Maher said behaviour such as uncontrolled rage and physical abuse of a child was "not reasonable corrected behaviour" and "absolutely would not be covered by what is the common law defence at the moment".
The Attorney-General said he had previously spoken with the premier when the topic arise "from time to time" but "no government has seen fit to progress amendments previously".
He said the government would consider this and the remaining 135 recommendations carefully.